User-Generated Content: More Than Customer Reviews

What is UGC?

UGC is content that customers generate about a specific brand. UGC can range from positive customer reviews posted on sites like Google and Yelp to deep-dive videos on products and services. Audiences consider UGC authentic because the opinions expressed are free of commercial inference, making them trustworthy. 

Think of UGC as a tech version of word-of-mouth advertising. This is a powerful marketing tool for any business because people trust other people’s experiences and consumers can glean real-life insights and opinions about your product or service through UGC.

Types of UGC

While it’s something we associate more today with social media, the UGC era began way before YouTube and Instagram with blogger site reviews. [Related article: Best Practices for Posting on Instagram]

The three forms of UGC are:

• Written content: This can range from short reviews, often accompanied by a rating on sites like Google and Yelp to longer-form articles and posts on blogger websites. 
• Visual content: Visual content includes photos that customers have taken that show them using your product or service to videos ranging from short clips on social media to full-length reviews and product walkthroughs. 
• Audio content: This includes third-party mentions and reviews of your brand, products or services on user-product podcasts.

Video and audio UGC is nearly always accompanied by explanatory written content to provide context to your user’s audience.

Feedback by other users to existing UGC on your products, services and brand can also be considered as UGC.

You are most likely to see UGC on:

• Social media: The primary venue for UGC, this includes platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube. [Related article: Why Your Business Should Be on Instagram]
• Blogs: This can be a consumer’s personal blog or content they post about your brand, products and services on platforms like Medium.
• Forums: An increasingly important source of UGC are platforms like Reddit and Quora where users can ask each other about their experiences with your brand, product or service. You may hear marketers refer to these types of interactions and conversations as “Q&A sessions.”
• Review sites: You mainly see opinion-based UGC on sites and platforms like Google, TripAdvisor and Yelp in the form of shorter reviews, often with ratings out of five or 10.
• E-commerce sites: Users share shorter reviews and ratings on platforms that feature your brand, products and services like eBay, Amazon and Etsy.
• Your own website: Many companies now prominently feature UGC on their websites. For example, a sunglasses manufacturer might include pictures of a customer wearing a particular pair of sunglasses on the relevant product page on the site.

What are the benefits of UGC?

UGC is a powerful and effective tool when used as part of your overall marketing strategy. Some brands are wary of UGC because consumers have the power over the actual content generated. However, with the right strategy and framework, UGC can benefit your brand massively and add to your content marketing library.

Research shows the following UGC benefits:

1. Higher click-through rates

Advertising based on UGC can result in a 400 percent increase in click-through rates, according to JoinBrands.

When a consumer sees UGC in their social media feed or an email newsletter, this prompts them to interact in greater numbers because they appreciate and engage with content from people like them. This, in turn, makes your brand and products more relatable and trustworthy.

2. Improved conversion rates 

Power Reviews reports an 8.5 percent increase in conversion rates for website visitors that are served UGC ― and a 100.6 percent conversion lift if they interact with the UGC. In this context, interacting means that when a visitor to your site is on a shopping page, they read through customer reviews, scroll through a carousel of user-submitted images, zoom in on an image for a closer look and so on.

This demonstrates the importance of UGC in building social proof for your brand. This gives potential customers a reason to do something or make a decision based on identifying with and trusting the person delivering the message. Social proof is one of the main reasons why influencer marketing works so well.

3. More returning site visitors

Featuring UGC across your site can result in a 20 percent increase in returning visitors. This is likely because your target audience recognizes your site as a place to find the views and opinions of their peers. 

4. Customers trust UGC more than brand content

Tint says 72 percent of consumers trust peer reviews and customer testimonials on a brand more than the brand’s advertising messages. EnTribe’s report also supports this. It shows that 90 percent of consumers want to see brand content from existing customers and that 83 percent are more likely to purchase from brands that share authentic UGC.

5. UGC boosts your authenticity

UGC is key for building brand authenticity. In a recent S&P survey for 451 Research, 62 percent of consumers believe that UGC is a key way of enhancing brand authenticity, vital for effectively telling your brand’s story. 

Consumers value UGC because it feels unscripted and honest, quite separate from the polished and refined marketing messages they’re used to receiving.

How can you receive and showcase UGC?

To generate and distribute UGC to increase your social media subscribers, drive additional traffic and sales to your website and engage consumers more, follow these steps.

1. Proactively ask customers for reviews

Seventy-five percent of users say they look for customer reviews on a product or service before making a purchase. Reflecting their importance, some customer relationship management systems now have online review management platforms that let you prompt customers to leave a review of your business on Google, Yelp and other sites. Check out our review of Podium to find out how to manage online reviews with that app.

Other ways to get customers to leave their feedback include adding a Google Review link directly to your email signature and putting one on your invoice to prompt customers into action. You could also hang a quick response code up in your retail outlet or place one on your website that connects to your Google Review link too.

When someone posts their opinion on your business, make sure you respond to their online review. BrightLocal reports that 89 percent of potential customers state that if a local business responds to online reviews, they are “fairly” or “highly” likely to want to buy from them.

Another approach you can take is to embed reviews on your site. Some plug-ins can pull reviews from Google, TripAdvisor and other platforms directly to your site. Many website platforms now allow your customers to comment on an item they’ve purchased, which will then appear on the particular product or service page for other visitors to read. [Related article: Best Website Builders and Design Services]

Learn more >> 10 Ways to Get Good Customer Reviews

2. Encourage your customers to create UGC images and video and promote the content

Customers are nearly three times more likely to engage with a brand’s social media than any other content type. 

The EnTribe survey found that more than half of Gen Zers actively want to be featured on their favorite brand’s social media pages. Eighty percent report that they have shared or would share the purchases they’ve made on social media with others. [Related article: How to Build a Brand That Attracts Gen Z and Millennials]

To encourage your customers to take part, create a unique brand hashtag that customers and followers can use in their posts ― this makes it easier for you to spot UGC content about your business. Sixty-four percent of consumers have tagged a brand on social media. 

You can also try campaign-specific hashtags for something more targeted. For example, if you run a gym or are a fitness consultant, you could encourage clients to post their stories and images about working with you. Something like a “before and after” image-based campaign could be highly effective. 

For your most enthusiastic contributors, consider approaching them to feature in a showcase or testimonial to give followers a chance to share their journey with your followers. You could also use UGC images and videos on your website to demonstrate to visitors that they’re part of a wider and happy community of customer

Incentivize your audience to join in with your campaigns by offering them freebies, discounts or other appealing prizes.

3. Engage with bloggers and vloggers

Look for bloggers and vloggers whose demographics are similar to yours and where featuring or reviewing your product would be consistent with other content on a website or video channel. This is a highly effective way of reaching your target audience as well as using the influence these creators have over their followers for your benefit.

Send an email or message to the creator to offer them the chance to review and then share their honest opinion about your product. Their audience appreciates their style and method of delivery so resist the urge to insert yourself in the editorial or production process for the blog or video.

There is no guarantee, of course, that their review will be favorable. Either way, make sure that you’re available to interact with people who read the blog or watch the video to answer their questions about your product. If the review is positive, you may wish to consider using some or all of the article or video in your marketing campaigns.

4. Create a community for your brand

Brand communities are growing in popularity and are a highly reliable source of UGC for your company.

Your brand community could be centered on a Facebook page or an email newsletter. Better still, if you have a large enough audience, create an invite-only forum where, on making a purchase, customers get access to an exclusive, members-only online discussion site where they can meet and interact with you and each other.

Run polls, competitions and other incentives to encourage increased participation and discussion between members to reinforce the feeling of community among your client base. Ask members to get involved in designing your next product or advertising campaign to increase the sense of belonging and brand loyalty.

Some firms even successfully use their community discussion forums to answer new customer’s questions about your products and services. You may already be a member of such a community like the ones at Apple, Microsoft or Tesla.

Best practices for UGC

When generating and distributing UGC for your company, be sure to follow these best practices.

Always get permission from creators

Even though you may be soliciting content from your customers and followers, they own whatever they create. So, before reposting it on your own channel or using it in a paid marketing campaign, make sure you have their legal permission to feature their content.

Credit your creators

When sharing text, images, videos or audio created by customers and users, be sure to credit them. This is not only good manners ― your contributors may also want the content they create to be associated with them directly among the wider community.

Protect your creators

If you’re republishing UGC on social media or a video-sharing platform, other users can comment on what your customers and followers have created. Although the vast majority of feedback is likely to be supportive, monitor comments regularly to protect the feelings and identities of your contributors. If you need to, shut down the ability for others to comment.

Only use UGC that’s right for your brand

You know more clearly than anyone else the type of content that’s right for your brand. Make sure you only distribute UGC that is consistent with your company and its identity.

Kimberlee Leonard contributed to this article.